


gone, gone, gone

by JoyfullyyoursDav



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Minor Barry Bluejeans/Lup, References to Depression, Self-Sacrifice, Suicide, Team as Family, Temporary Character Death, and everything goes to heck, magnus and julia get married on his home planet, then the hunger kills her
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-21
Packaged: 2019-05-02 15:49:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14548116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoyfullyyoursDav/pseuds/JoyfullyyoursDav
Summary: an au where Magnus and Julia get married on his home planet. She is consumed by the Hunger, and the course of Magnus' story is irreparably changed.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> THIS FIC IS UNDERGOING / HAS UNDERGONE MAJOR EDITS.  
> so if you've read it before, a lot has been added to each chapter! and i'm sorry about that! but i wanted to improve it okay
> 
> credit to [this post](https://lup-taco.tumblr.com/post/170510521753/okay-but-i-just-thought-of-something-sadder-than) on tumblr for inspiring this fic  
> also, i'm real real sorry for hurting our favorite ruff boi like this

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the threat of the approaching storm, and the way the color seems to be bleeding out of the world, as if it’s pining for them, already—he moves quickly toward the Starblaster. He glances back at Julia right before he steps inside.
> 
> It’s the last time Magnus will see her alive.  
> But it’s not the last time he’ll see her.

Magnus falls in love with Julia a thousand times.

The first time is on day one of his new job, right after Mr. Waxman hands him a tub of varnish and a brush. Magnus starts sanding and prepping an oak dining table, a beautiful piece Mr. Waxman had made for his in-laws, when Julia walks into the room. Simple as that. She walks in, casts a small smile in Magnus’s direction, and everything feels different. Brighter, but somehow cloudier, too, as if all he knows is to keep moving in her direction, toward the light that shines from her.

He falls in love with her the first night they talk until the suns rise, the dawn light crisp and patient as it fills the world around them. He falls in love with her hands: the way they tuck a curl behind her ear as effortlessly as they hoist a ladder. He falls in love with her when they’re feeding ducks at the park. A few mallards pick on the smallest one in the flock, and it makes Julia cry. “I don’t know why,” she says as she wipes her face. “Sometimes I just get like this.” And he wraps his arms around her, loving her more than he did a minute ago.

He’s young, but he never knew love could be like this. Constant growth, an expansion without end. His heart grows kinder and braver and better every day he spends with her.

He falls in love with her when he asks her to marry him, and she replies, “Shit, really?”

Laughing, he asks, “Is that a yes?” and she throws her arms around his neck.

“You’re nineteen years old,” his mother says later, as he and Julia share the news. “Are you sure you’re ready for marriage, Magnus?”

He smiles. He’s sure.

He falls in love with her on their wedding day, underneath the gazebo that he and Steven built. They say “I do” at twilight, just as the fireflies start winking and waltzing around them.

Later, under the lantern-light, after they’ve eaten and danced their fill, Magnus gives Julia a wooden duck. “I carved it right after our date in the park,” he says.

She kisses him. “Your love makes me better,” she says, and—learning that it’s true for her, too—he falls in love with her again.

*

They rent out a room above Steven’s workshop, eking out a small but happy life together. But carpentry jobs get fewer and farther between. They eat dinner with Steven once a week, and Magnus can’t help noticing how much older the man looks, all at once. Steven has always been quiet, but his silence at these meals is telling. He’s worried.

And that’s when Magnus hears about the Institute of Planar Research and Exploration, looking to hire. He applies for a job on the side, since work in Steven’s shop has crawled to almost a standstill. He’s hired as a janitor. He sweeps the floors of massive lecture rooms, halls with impressively high ceilings. He likes the feel of the place and all the different people he meets. It’s not long before he’s promoted to security detail, and then one of his supervisors tells him about a prestigious opportunity.

Magnus applies, and to his astonishment, gets offered the job: security officer on a spaceship, part of a scientific mission.

He talks it over with Julia late into the night, many nights in a row. It’ll be a difficult two months, they know. But the money is quite frankly too good to turn down. It’s the kind of money Magnus never dreamed of making; the kind of money that could turn their life around. He and Julia sit at the kitchen table, reading over the contract from the Institute. “How exactly did you get this job?” she teases, but Magnus knows it’s an honest question, one he’s asked himself many times.

“Apparently, the ship runs on the bonds of the crew,” he explains, shooting her a cheesy grin. “And I guess I just get along with everybody. I’m so damn lovable.”

“Well, I already knew _that_ ,” she says, smiling.

They agree. Magnus will go into space for a couple months. He’ll come home with a vault-load of gold, and they’ll start over. They’ll build a cabin in the mountains. They’ll raise goats. They’ll get a few hound dogs, and they’ll start a family.

On the day of takeoff, Magnus won’t let himself cry. It’s just two months, he thinks repeatedly. Julia walks him to the gangplank and he squeezes her hands tightly, memorizing the feel of them, the weight of them in his. Tears glisten in her eyes, but she’s smiling. “I’m proud of you,” she says, and she slips something into his hands. He looks down to see the wooden duck, the one he’d given her on their wedding night two years ago.

“I gave this to you,” he says, and she smiles.

“So give it back to me when you come home,” she says.

“I’m gonna miss you like crazy,” he tells her.

“I know. Kick some alien ass for me.”

He laughs. “I told you, that isn’t in the job description.”

“Head security officer on a spaceship, Mags? Sounds like you’ll be beating up aliens to me.”

He kisses her. “I love you, Jules.”

“Love you too. Now hurry up, before it starts raining.”

She glances up at the darkening sky. An eerily motionless storm has been building overhead all morning. Later, Magnus will think the storm is what made him step onto the ship. If it had been a beautiful day, he might have stayed. If the suns had been shining down on them, warm and golden, he might not have had the strength to leave. But with the threat of an approaching storm, and the way the color seems to be bleeding out of the world, as if it’s pining _for_ them, already—he moves quickly toward the Starblaster. He glances back at Julia right before he steps inside.

It’s the last time Magnus will see her alive.

But it’s not the last time he’ll see her.

*

As he stands on the deck of the ship and they begin taking off, he expects to think of Julia’s hands, strong and warm. He expects to think of goats and gazebos and babies with jet-black curls.

Instead, he stands near six people he barely knows, and he watches his world get destroyed.

Tendrils of darkness shoot down from the sky. The captain’s hands are white-knuckled on the wheel as he maneuvers the ship around the columns, flying higher, higher. The storm thickens as they retreat, completely obscuring the plane within a few minutes.

Magnus hears someone sobbing quietly nearby, and he thinks nothing. He hears something clatter by his feet, barely registering it’s the duck, dropped from his slack hand. His mind is blank. Numb.

He turns to the captain. Words leave his mouth, coming from nowhere. “Go back.”

“I can’t get hold of the Institute,” Davenport says, as if talking to himself. His fingers are twisting the communication dials, a stony expression locked on his face.

Magnus walks over, grabs the gnome’s shoulder, giving him one quick shake. “Land,” he says.

“We don’t know what that thing _is_ ,” Davenport retorts. “There’s no way I’m flying straight into—”

“My wife is back there.” Magnus doesn’t recognize his own voice. It tears itself from his throat like a wild animal bursting free from a trap.

“We’ve all got people we care about, pal,” Davenport snaps, and he looks angry now. “If I can’t get hold of the Institute to confirm—”

“Fuck you,” Magnus snarls, and he cocks his fist. Suddenly, he’s being grabbed, yanked backwards. The Bluejeans guy and one of the elves grab him by the arms. Merle grabs his legs. It takes all three of them to hold him back.

“I’m calling it,” Davenport says. He’s not shouting, he doesn’t even sound angry anymore, but his tone is final. Resolute. “We’re leaving.” He looks at Magnus, still fighting, struggling against the hands that hold him. “We’ll go back when it’s safe,” he says. “We’ll regroup, and we’ll go back.”

*

Magnus hounds Davenport for weeks. He has no interest in the animal planet, the language that Barry and the twins are learning, or the light of creation. He only cares about getting back to Julia.

Every day, for weeks, is the same. He wakes up early and approaches the captain with a rigid command. “Try again.”

Davenport sighs. “We keep trying and nothing changes,” he says. “We can’t leave. It’s not gonna work, Magnus.”

“Try. Again.”

Davenport humors him for awhile. Early every morning, they take off and land a few minutes later when the sky gives them no purchase. Finally, though, Davenport makes another executive decision. “We’ll leave when we’re able to,” he says, “but I’m not wasting fuel and time trying every day. I’m sorry.” Magnus doesn’t say a word. He retreats to his bunk. He only participates in teamwork if he’s asked. Otherwise, he’s alone.

He keeps Julia’s duck right next to his bed, where he can see it every night before he falls asleep. Wake up to it every morning. Its presence is a silent meditation he has with himself each day. _Give it back to me when you come home._ Something in him has broken, he knows that, and he doesn’t examine it too closely. But the existence of this duck gives him hope like nothing else can. As long as he still has this, there has to be a way home.

  
*

One evening that year, he’s called to a meeting so they can discuss what they’ve learned about this planet so far.

“The animals have these idols,” Taako explains. “We think they’re real. Y’know, actual living creatures. But it’s possible they’re just—well, the mongoose equivalent of a metaphor.”

“There’s an owl that represents wisdom,” Lup continues, “a wolf that represents instinct, and a bear that represents power. If anybody knows about the light of creation, we think it’s probably them.” She glances at Barry, who nods in agreement.

Magnus clears his throat. “You said there’s a power bear?” Lup nods. He stands up. “Let’s go then,” he says.

They all look at him with surprise. Magnus hasn’t left the ship much. He’s hardly left his bunk. There are long stretches where nobody sees him, and until now, he has seemed perfectly content to let that continue. He certainly hasn’t taken initiative like this, at least not for anything that involved staying on this plane.

“I think that’s a good idea,” Davenport says carefully. “We can learn a little bit more about this world, at least.”

“Whatever,” Magnus says. “I just wanna fight that bear.”

*

_What is strength?_

Strength is not leaving. Strength is never giving an inch. Refusing to budge.

Bam. He gets hit again, grits his teeth through the pain and tastes blood.

_What does strength mean, Magnus?_

Strength means staying put.

The bear’s paw comes down again, like a meteor, clobbering him in the shoulder. The force of it sends him reeling and gasping in pain. As if to prove him wrong. As if to tell him, _You need to move sometimes._

But Magnus can’t. He’s stuck. He doesn’t need help. It would be pointless, when the only person who can help him can’t reach him. Isn’t here. Might be dead.

When the Hunger descends on this world—the familiar columns of darkness plummeting down from the sky—it shocks the others. They sprint away, panicking, unprepared. But Magnus actually sighs with relief, as if he’s been waiting for this to happen. Just biding time until this world fell apart, too. Except now, he does what he didn’t do for Julia. He stays.

He starts scooping up wolf puppies as the rest of the crew runs away toward the ship. He watches them go, but he won’t make the same mistake twice. He won’t leave.

With a pup under each arm, he starts running toward the nearest cliff-face, searching for a cave, a den, any shelter at all—and that’s when it happens. A black column, flickering with opalescent light, slams down right next to him. He barely dodges out of the way, falling backwards, losing his grip on the puppies. They scamper away, terrified, and before he can reach out for them…he sees her. _Julia_. Appearing from the column that almost hit him.

She steps toward him, and he sees a gazebo, twinkling lights, hears the distant chimes of a bell above a workshop door, and then he sees nothing else but _her_. She looks different, ghostly and ravaged. Her body is made out of shadow, her black hair swirling unnaturally around her head. Her eyes are dark, sunken, with pupils that flash bright blue, then green, then red. She looks different, but Magnus would recognize her in any form. He’d know her even if he was unconscious, dreaming.

She comes closer, silent and spectral. He doesn’t try to stand, crawl, speak. He forgets himself entirely. The moment of his first death is spent reaching, fingers straining, trying to touch his wife’s face.

*

When he opens his eyes to find himself on the Starblaster, in the exact spot where this nightmare began and his world got ripped apart, he unleashes cusses at everyone in sight. He relishes how the relief on their faces turns to confusion, then sadness.

“Fuck all of you,” he says. “It’s your fault I left her. Twice. It’s this damn ship’s fault. It’s this whole fucking mission. Fuck it. I’m done.”

But of course, that’s not up to him.

*

The next cycle, he stays in his bunk. He almost never leaves it; he only speaks when spoken to.

The crew tries to reach out to him. He hears their quiet conversations late at night, discussing the bond engine, what Magnus’s isolation means for the mission. A few times, they actually sound concerned for him as a person and not just as a cog in this hellish machine they’re stuck in. But he ignores the knocks on his door. He sleepwalks through his days. And he keeps track of time.

A week before the anniversary of Julia’s death, he emerges. He starts going outside regularly to look up at the sky. He waits for an apocalypse the same way some children await Candlenights.

The moment that the sky begins to darken and the landscape drains of its color, Magnus launches himself off the ship. Lucretia and Davenport try to stop him. They grab the back of his jacket, but he wriggles out of it and runs. He keeps running until he sees the Starblaster streak off into the sky, and then he stops. He stands still and he waits for his wife.

He finally sees her through the chaos, in the final moment before he dies. Her swirling hair, her hollow black eyes. Strange, how quickly he can pick her out of all the other shadows. “Julia!” he screams, but the shadows seem to absorb the sound. Julia doesn’t react, doesn’t even look. The darkness takes him.

And then he’s back on the ship. He punches the nearest wall, breaks two of his fingers, and won’t let Merle heal them.

*

His grief and the Hunger become interchangeable in his mind. He can’t separate the two. Sometime during the next cycle, Barry suggests that he leave with them this time, that he try to avoid death. “We don’t know the ramifications that dying repeatedly will have on us,” Barry points out.

Magnus nods. But when the end of the year comes, he takes up his regular position outside, in the open, where the pillars of Hunger deposit their ghosts. Looking for Julia. Waiting for the end, as his friends fly away. Unlike them, he can’t escape. He’s trapped in the stranglehold of his grief. It follows him everywhere; he can’t step onto a spaceship and leave it behind, so he doesn’t even try.

*

Seven cycles in, Lup comes to his bunk late one night. “We’ve been talking,” she says, inviting herself to sit on the edge of his bed, with the same confidence she has when she does everything. “We’re gonna have a memorial service tomorrow for all the people we lost at home." Before Magnus can say anything, she presses on. “It’s a touchy subject, so I volunteered to talk to you about it.”

“A memorial service for people who might not be dead,” he says flatly.

She nods. “Yeah.”

He stares at her. “What’s this about, Lup?”

“It’s about honoring who we’ve lost, Mags. It’s not about giving up, but whatever happened, they’re definitely lost to us right now.” She pauses. “I know you haven’t given up on Julia. But a lot of us feel like we’re being chased by ghosts.” She meets his gaze, and there’s a sadness there he hasn’t truly seen before.

“Some more than others,” he says. He knows that Davenport and Merle grew up in traditional small-folk clans: hundreds of gnomes and dwarves in their cozy nooks of the world. All lost when the Hunger came. He knows Lucretia had elderly parents, an older brother. Barry had a mother he’s spoken of frequently, how he was raised by her alone in a tiny mining town. But the twins…they’re different. He knows they had a rough-and-tumble sort of upbringing, that they set out on their own at a young age. But they’ve never talked about anyone they grieve.

Magnus looks at Lup closely. “Who have you lost?” he asks.

Lup tosses her hair back, matter-of-factly. “An aunt, a long time ago, when we were just kids,” she says. She clears her throat. “And a mother.”

The aunt he knew about, from passing comments that never really amounted to much, other than the source of the twins' culinary gifts. But the mother, that’s new. “You’ve never mentioned your mother,” he says slowly.

“Well, she wasn’t much of one, to be honest.” Lup shrugs. “Last time I saw her, Taako and I were teenagers and I told her I’d die before I’d ever see her again.” She pauses, smiling sadly at Magnus. “Guess I was right.”

“I didn’t know—” he replies, and it’s not a complete sentence, but he stops abruptly anyway.

Lup shrugs. “Grief is complicated,” she says. “For Taako and me…well, what's our grief, compared to yours? A mother that abandoned us and an aunt that died a hundred years ago. You know? That hardly seemed worth mentioning, especially with you.”

“I wish you had,” Magnus says, and means it. “It helps. To talk about it.”

Lup nods, reaches over to pat his leg. “A memorial service might help, too,” she says, and stands. “Think about it, okay?” And she leaves.

The next day, Magnus joins the crew on the deck of the ship. The planet they’re on is made of glass, and the ship hovers above the glinting, reflective surface below. The crew forms a circle, writes down the names of the people they’ve lost on strips of paper. _Marlena. The Davenport clan. Leema. Socrates and Arlene. Julia._ They light each piece of paper on fire in turn, watch the names burn and drift down as ash to the glass below.

It doesn’t feel like goodbye, but something shifts in him all the same. From then on, he stops looking for a way back.

What he needs is a way _through_.


	2. Chapter 2

He doesn’t see Julia in the Hunger at the end of every cycle. Most of the time, he doesn’t even glimpse her through the army of shadows, the descending darkness, the thick twisting tendrils filled with shifting light. But that’s not why he stays. He looks for her, of course, and he hopes to see her the way some people cross a street and hope to be hit. But seeing her is not the reason.

He stays as penance. He stays because this is how Julia died: consumed by shadows, alone. The Hunger was the last thing she ever saw. What right does he have to avoid it?

He’ll die ninety-seven times this way. The one and only time he returns to the ship is while clutching a baby jellyfish to his chest, humming under his breath as he runs, dodging ghosts.

*

The light from the soul crystal illuminates Lup from behind, making the expression on her face even darker. “This doesn’t feel right,” she says.

Magnus glances at the others. Merle has already unholstered his battleaxe, holding it with white knuckles. Taako’s eyes dart back and forth from the crystal to his sister. Magnus has known them for nearly twenty years at this point. He knows when they’re prepared to strike.

So he moves to stand beside Lup, facing the others with clenched fists. He feels a muscle twitching in his jaw. “She’s right,” he says. “We can’t do this. We can’t destroy a world.”

Taako throws up his hands in frustration. “Why am I always the only pragmatist with you people? That’s happening anyway!” he says. “This world is doomed no matter what.”

There’s desperation in Lup’s voice as she says, “Are we just gonna burn every world that we can’t save? Just to keep the Hunger from—”

Magnus cuts her off. “No. We’re not.”

“Listen,” Taako says, with desperation to match his sister’s. “I get it, I do. I understand where you’re coming from. But that thing—the Hunger—I don’t want it getting stronger. It—”

Magnus interrupts again. “Go fuck yourself, Taako,” he says. “We’re not doing this. We don’t destroy worlds. Not ever.”

And despite everything, it’s Taako, as usual, who comes up with an alternate plan. Taako is always able to find a way to appease them, with uncanny accuracy.

It’s decided. Most of the robots enter the soul crystal before Taako shrinks it and puts it in his bag. Some robots decide to stay put, and Magnus trains with them, teaching them hand-to-hand combat and defense techniques. He focuses on helping the robot leader, who he comes to know as T, so that she can help the others.

“What do you know of this storm that’s coming?” T asks him one day, after training.

“We know it’ll consume you. Make you part of it,” Magnus says.

“So tell me, what’s the use in fighting?”

“Because maybe you can hurt it,” Magnus replies, and thinks involuntarily of Julia’s sunken eyes, flashing green and blue and red.

When they hear the boom that announces the Hunger’s arrival, Lup hands T a gun. Magnus stands beside the robot, unmoving.

Lup hesitates. “I wish, just once, you’d come with us,” she says.

“I know,” Magnus says back, and waves them off. He turns to T. “You ready?”

T looks upward, just as the pillars began to fall. “I’m ready,” she says.

*

Back on the ship, Magnus approaches Taako. He’s clutching the shrunken soul crystal to his chest, turning it over in his hands every so often. He looks sheepish as Magnus approaches. It’s only been a few days since their argument, and they haven’t had much time to talk since then. “I’m sorry,” Magnus tells him immediately. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that.”

Taako shakes his head. “No, it’s okay. You were right.” He chuckles, glancing at his sister. “Both of you, as usual. The moral brigade strikes again, eh?”

Lup nudges him, then says to the whole crew, “That stuff I was saying down there…that wasn’t just talk. I believe that, one of these times, we’re gonna get it right. We’re gonna find a way to defeat the Hunger and save everybody inside of it.”

Magnus feels his face grow hot. He roughly pulls Lup into a hug, squeezing her tight. She pats his back gently, comfortingly, before he even realizes he’s crying. “Thank you,” he whispers.

“Let’s make a promise,” Lup suggests, pulling back from the hug, “to not let ourselves ever get to that point again, where we even consider destroying a world.”

Magnus is the first to put his hand in the circle.

  
*

He talks with Merle frequently about life and death, the possibility of eternity. What it means to have faith. Magnus has no patience for the gods, or the notion of destiny. He cannot believe he was destined to lose Julia, to have her for mere moments and no more. He refuses to believe that she only existed to die. He shares this with Merle one day, aboard the ship, looking out over the railing at a planet pockmarked with craters.

Merle smiles at him. “No one exists just to die,” he says gently, then laughs. “Well. Except maybe us.”

*

“Maybe Julia gets regenerated each time too,” Lucretia says to him one evening, about thirty-five cycles in. It’s late, and the others have gone to bed. They’re sitting in the kitchen, drinking tea mostly in silence, her journals spread out on the table. Her white hair has spilled out of its usual bun, and she looks tired. Magnus swears he can see lines on her face that didn’t used to be there. Lucretia hasn’t technically aged, none of them have. But with the decades that have passed-and-not-passed, they all look older. He and Lucretia, the babies of the crew, most of all.

With a jolt, Magnus realizes he’s been with his new family ten times longer than he was with Julia. And within the context of their disturbing immortality, those three years he belonged to Julia hold _more_ weight, not less. They’re gilded, untouchable. Quite literally frozen in time.

He nods, saying nothing. If what Lucretia says is true, even more reason for him to face the Hunger each year. As many times as it takes. If Julia has to repeat her death, so should he. 

*

On the plane with the Legato Conservatory, they’re instructed to _create_.

Magnus doesn’t. He’s only skilled in hitting things and woodworking, and he hasn’t done the latter even once since this mission began. He thinks about crafting a rocking chair out of sandalwood, or a smooth walnut table with an ornate column base—furniture like the kind he once built for a tiny apartment, lifetimes ago—but he puts off actually working on anything. Suddenly, it’s the morning of the ceremony and he’s still empty-handed.

Almost on a whim, he grabs Julia’s duck off his nightstand, where it’s been since the first day of this mission. He heads off toward the valley at the base of the mountain. He’ll offer this. He knows that most people devote all of their time creating things to offer the Light. Surely this measly little duck—rough around the edges, with scuff marks and chips from life aboard a space ship for nearly fifty years—will be rejected.

And if not, Magnus thinks, so be it. If he can’t bring it home like he promised, better to let the mountain have it, in exchange for the thing that’ll save this planet. Better to let something of Julia’s closer to the light.

Still, when the flash of light consumes the duck, leaving an empty pedestal behind, Magnus starts crying. It feels all at once like a funeral and a commencement. Or perhaps an acknowledgment, maybe by a higher power, that Julia had lived, that they had loved, that her life matters in the grand scheme of everything.

Davenport grabs Magnus’s hand, pulling him out of his thoughts, and Magnus whispers, “It was the best I could do.”

“I know, bud,” he whispers back. “I know.”

*

Later, when he finds Fisher—or more precisely, when Fisher finds _him_ , lets him into its strange underground world, and Magnus sees how much joy Julia’s duck has brought it—he gets a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach. _This_ …this is fate. He thinks about all the conversations with Merle, and every time he prayed (and yes, they were prayers, he knows that now), staring at this duck by his bedside. He’ll pretend, afterward, that he was just trying to save Fisher’s life. But truthfully, as soon as he saw Fisher with that duck, he knew he couldn’t leave without it.

*

Merle teaches him how to meditate. They sit, cross-legged and quiet, on the deck of the Starblaster each morning. The silence between them makes a sound Magnus is certain, after a few cycles, he’d recognize anywhere. Taako asks about the meals Julia used to make. Then he cooks them regularly for the crew, tweaking them until they’re as perfect as they’ll get. Lucretia writes down every detail Magnus tells her about Julia. “Maybe someday, reading it back will help,” she tells him. Barry and Lup write a song they title “Jules,” a melancholy tune that lilts hopefully at the end. They perform it for Magnus whenever he asks. And every so often, Davenport tries to fly home, accelerating uselessly toward the immovable stars, and Magnus knows he does this for him.

In other words, his friends develop ways to honor Julia, the person Magnus loves. A person they’ll never meet.

Magnus carves wooden ducks for Fisher, and that’s a way to honor her, too. He honors her by getting out of bed on each new planet. Trying to leave it better than he found it, trying to keep it in one piece. He honors her by searching for the light of creation to minimize the death toll, to save worlds like he couldn’t save theirs. He honors her by kicking alien ass like he promised, by pocketing sprigs of lavender whenever he finds them, by sacrificing himself.

He honors her by dying, as fruitless as it seems to be.

*

One cycle, Taako—who usually bolts back to the ship immediately when the Hunger arrives—stays with him. He stands beside him and looks up at the darkening sky with a surprising amount of patience.

“What’re you doing?” Magnus asks.

Taako smirks at him and says, “You shouldn’t be the only one to die, my man. Not every time.” Then he grabs Magnus’s hand and holds it tight, as they wait for the wave of shadows to crash against them.

*

Magnus is surprised, to say the least, on the last day of Cycle 65. The Hunger descends, and he stands, as usual, out in the open. He looks up to watch the Starblaster go, and sees Lup’s form fall from it, her arms spread, no resistance. Funnily enough, his gut instinct is to try to _catch her_ —but of course, she’s too far away. And then he watches her new form rise, crackling with energy as it raises a fist.

He doesn’t speak to Lup or Barry for a week after that. He tries to be subtle about it, not wanting to start a fight. He just wants _space_ , which—in nearly seventy years—has been pretty impossible to get.

They finally corner him in his bunk one evening. “Alright, Burnsides,” Lup says, pushing her way into his room and holding the door for Barry. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Magnus says.

Barry raises an eyebrow, unconvinced. “Really? Yesterday Taako made Julia’s lasagna and you barely had three bites.”

“Wasn’t hungry,” he replies, and Lup crosses her arms.

“Bullshit,” she says. “Spill. Or I’ll tell Cap’n’port exactly how you sneaked that dog on-board ten cycles ago, and then you’ll never be able to pull that off again.”

Magnus doesn’t chuckle, doesn’t even crack a smile, and Lup uncrosses her arms and looks more concerned than ever.

“It’s you,” he says after a moment, glancing back and forth between them.

“Us,” Barry says slowly. “Becoming liches, I assume?”

Magnus nods.

“Okay,” Lup says. “Which part about us becoming liches?”

“You shouldn’t have done it in secret. You should have talked it over with the rest of us first.”

“Well, it _super_ wasn’t a group decision,” Lup says. Her tone is calm, but terse.

Barry cuts in. “You understand why we did it though, right, Mags? It’s just…insurance. It’ll be better for all of us in the long run.”

“So you think,” Magnus replies. “But if you ask me, there’s nothing better about being… _that_.”

“Excuse me? Being what?” Lup asks.

“You know what I mean. Undead.”

“Do I look undead to you?” Lup holds out her arms and spins around.

“Lup, come on. You ripped your soul out and now you can’t be killed. And you didn’t think to ask the rest of us how we’d feel about that?”

Lup opens her mouth to retort, but Barry touches her arm. Magnus can see the understanding blossoming across his face. “Ah,” he says. “Okay.” And a moment later, he sees that Lup understands too.

Awkward silence fills the room. Barry clears his throat and says, “It’s about Julia. About her…dying, but not. Right?”

“It’s not _just_ that. I think becoming liches is pretty damn extreme in its own right.”

“That’s me, baby, always to the extreme,” Lup tries to joke, but Magnus glares at her, and she changes directions. “We’re in a pretty extreme situation here, bud.”

“I know. I do understand why you did it. And I’ll get over it. But there’s something that _you_ don’t understand.” Magnus takes a deep breath. “Death is…well, it’s supposed to be inevitable, and there’s a _reason_ for that. The life we’ve been living so far, it’s every bit as unnatural and—well, terrible as the Hunger itself.” Lup and Barry nod, but Magnus presses on, worried he’s not getting his point across the way he wants to. “Without death, life is pointless. And with whatever the fuck the Hunger does to the people it consumes, life is pointless. And you two just… _opted_ for that. Pointlessness.”

“It’s a last ditch effort,” Lup says, “to make sure we don’t perma-die before we defeat the Hunger. That’s all.”

“I think it’s also a last ditch effort to _not die_ ,” Magnus shoots back. “I think you’ve gotten scared, both of you. Scared, as you put it, to  _perma-die_. And I gotta tell you guys. Dying is not the worst thing that could happen to you. You pretty much just did the worst thing, actually.”

More awkward silence falls between them, before Barry says, “Well. It’s done. We can’t undo it, Mags. And I hope you’ll see one day that it was worth it, that we made the right decision. For the multiverse, anyway.”

Magnus shrugs. “I told you, I’ll get over it.”

Lup gives him a small smile. “You’re a good egg, Maggie. We’re still on the same side, you know?”

“Always,” Magnus tells her.

As they start to leave his bunk, he grabs Barry by the arm. “Hang back for a sec?” he asks. Barry nods and kisses Lup on the cheek. She leaves reluctantly, and Barry shuts the door and turns to him with a questioning look.

“How much of this was because you were human?” Magnus asks.

Barry winces a little. “I still _am_ human, Magnus.”

“You know what I mean. How much of this was because you didn’t want to die without her?”

Barry looks down, suddenly very interested in his socks. He doesn’t answer, but Magnus doesn’t need him to.

“Well, full transparency, part of what I’m feeling right now is jealousy,” he says. “You’ll get what I never did.”

“What’s that?” Barry asks quietly.

“A lifetime. More. With the person you love.”

Without a word, Barry pulls him into a hug. “We don’t want to lose _any_ of you,” he says after a moment.

Magnus chuckles darkly, and squeezes before pulling back. “Well, that’s the shitty thing, isn’t it? Once this is over, you’ve guaranteed you’re gonna lose all of us. Eventually.” Barry’s expression is grim, but not surprised. Magnus can tell he’s thought of this already. And once again, silence fills the space between them.

“Some sleep will do us all some good,” Magnus finally says.

“Sure. Goodnight, Mags.” Barry turns to leave.

“And, Bare? One more thing?”

“Yeah?” Barry glances over his shoulder at him.

“I would’ve done it too. If I had gotten the chance.”

Barry smiles sadly. “I know. And hey, I’m a pretty good necromancer these days. I would have helped you.”

*

That night, Magnus has trouble falling asleep. He lets himself into Lucretia’s room to sit by Fisher’s tank, something he does some nights, with her permission. She’s snoring quietly as he wiggles his fingers in the water above Fisher’s bell. It reaches up, grazes his fingertips with soft tentacles.

He thinks about the way Fisher used to scream, high-pitched notes for hours on end, in the weeks and months right after they left the Legato plane. Magnus felt that, for the first time, he had a true partner in grief. He still feels that way. It’s not a partnership he relishes, but it’s one he needs.

“Hey, buddy,” he whispers, close to the glass. “You know, for some reason, I still think there’s a chance this ends okay. That maybe we can find some unity in all of this. Beat the bad guy and all be together. Isn’t that silly?”

Suddenly, Lucretia sits up in her bed. Magnus stifles a shout, jumping backwards. “ _Fuck_ , Lucretia. You just—”

Her eyes are wide with excitement and there’s a big smile on her face. “There is,” she says, and he’s confused at first, but then she continues, “We’ve still got a chance, Maggie. A _big_ chance.”

“Oh yeah?” Magnus rubs his chest, trying to calm down. “And does that chance involve giving me an actual heart attack, or...?”

Lucretia ignores him, and leans forward intently. “I’ve been coming up with a plan,” she says.


	3. Chapter 3

UNDER CONSTRUCTION because i'm garbage who can't make up their mind. will be updated soon!


	4. Chapter 4

UNDER CONSTRUCTION because i'm garbage who can't make up their mind. will be updated soon!


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